and the world spins madly on
by xshedreamsinredx
Summary: Draco/Astoria. It's just this heart on my sleeve that's bleeding.


**And the world spins madly on**

"_Sometimes, you make me feel,  
like I'm living at the edge of the world."_

The dining room remains draped in fragile silence, save for the occasional clinking of silver cutlery and teetering of fickle wine, sloshing about in its glassy confinements. The Malfoy Manor, despite all its sumptuousness and grandeur, is a lonely place. Unwelcoming and terrifying yet an ideal residence for her (post war) reclusive husband and his family.

It is sad, she reflects on days when she is feeling poetic enough to spew out literal nonsense, that she can't make a home out of bricks and countless servants. Something, a lot of girls her age would be thrilled to possess or at least appreciate.

"Astoria."

She wishes she could reach out and trace the edge of his clenched jaw when he looks at her casually just to incite a response other than cold and calculated indifference from him.

"How was your day?" She flutters her eyelashes at him demurely and stops, when it registers that she is speaking to her husband. She shouldn't get reduced to the foolish tactics of a sixteen year old girl just to warrant his attention. Someone who has forced her to grow up in so little time is certainly not allowed to make her forget that she has graduated out of Hogwarts.

"The usual." He says tersely, face impassive and eyes dull.

It makes her want to rage, break things, scream herself hoarse because she doesn't know 'the usual'. He has never given her opportunity to and he probably never will.

"Of course." She smiles but not at his half-hearted response because then she might just break down and do something equally foolish like cry. She pushes back her plate, rises up from the expensive mahogany table, her appetite lost somewhere between sixty-six degrees of separation.

* * *

He did not walk away from the war unscathed, for he has unattended scars and bloody bruises beneath expanse of flawless skin that no naked eye can see. The fractured pieces of horrors come to life behind his closed eyelids and she hears him cry and curse in his sleep more often than not.

The wall separating their rooms is paper thin, and his screams of '**don't' **and** 'NO'** are too loud to ignore tonight. She enters his room without his permission, rushing forth, next to his bedside. Impulsive actions being guided through prickling panic and concern.

"Draco," she cradles his head against her chest, runs her finger through his hair, murmuring silent words of comfort he is too deaf to hear. "Wake up," she fumbles for the right words through fissures of apprehension. "I'm… I'm here."

It's not worth much but it is the only thing she has to offer and she wonders for the slightest fraction of time if that means something (anything) to him. He cracks his eyes open, squinting at her through muddled thoughts and sleep induced confusion.

"What," his voice sounds like nails scraping on a chalkboard. Dry and brusque. "What… do you think you're doing?"

"I," she falters. Heart stuttering in her chest for reasons she doesn't understand. Reasons she refuses to understand. "I- I'm sorry," she says meekly, face burning with horror and mortification and she will never be able to face him after this. "I… shouldn't have done that."

She lets go of him and is about to leave when he stops her, strong hold manifesting itself around her wrist. He clears his throat. "You could stay," her heart is pushing through the vicinity of her windpipe, leaving thumbprints along the way, she is incapable of breathing. "If you want to."

She doesn't waste her breath on unnecessary words but the distinct rustling of sheets under her is affirmation enough.

Their proximity lasts for forty five portions of eternity, and ends when the cruel sunlight pours in and scattering the illusion and possibilities that linger in the darkest corner of her heart. She wakes up to find herself alone in the bed, air thick with ache and craving.

* * *

"I never wanted this for myself."

_I never wanted you_, he doesn't say (and that is an upgrade) yet it causes her to flinch anyway.

She smiles at him bleary-eyed and wounded and restless in her yellow summer dress, feeling so painfully young out in the broad daylight, walking beside him like a good, dutiful wife for the sake of keeping up appearances. "What did you want then?"

There is a gentle tug on her hand, a cruel parody of a caress drawing the outline of her palm. His fingers sketch out anonymous patterns on her skin, almost apologetically, as the sharp weight of his grey eyes settle on her.

"Nothing you can give."

His face betrays absolutely nothing, but his eyes soften imperceptibly in contradiction to his harsh words and the sight makes her insides clench something fierce which just goes ahead to exhibit how much of a messed individual she is.

"I suppose that is your subtle way of implying, I cannot be a part of your life." The execution of nonchalance is shoddy at the edges and maybe if she had practiced more, the delivery would have seemed more natural than plain desperate.

Something shifts in his gaze as continues to watch her, a barely discernible change from casualness to awareness. "Would you like to be?"

* * *

The first time he touches her, behind closed doors and away from prying eyes, she cringes and then proceeds to pointedly ignore that she did.

He pulls away his hand in an instant. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

She feels blood rush to her cheeks, her hands tremble at sides too badly to disguise her hesitation and she can hear words like 'duty' and 'heir' pounding a terrible staccato in the back of her head. She bites down on her lower lip to hide the tears that well up in her eyes, uneasy at the immediacy she has hardly ever experienced before.

"Maybe, we should… turn out the lights?" She squeaks out, aiming and failing miserably at damage control.

He laughs softly causing her to look at him in surprise; his mouth curls in an amused smirk, grey eyes, light and carefree. She truly would have been offended if she wasn't so damn flustered already. He inches closer to her, reaches out to place the strap of her nightgown back on her shoulder from where it had slid off; the action causes goose bumps to break out on her skin.

He pretends to be gentleman enough not to notice.

"Astoria," he says gently, melting her coherent thoughts away with his intense stare. "I would rather wait till the day, you are ready to leave them open."

* * *

"Were you in love with Pansy Parkinson?" She asks him one day, out of nowhere. It has never seemed important to her before but she just feels the need to know what there is to know about him and it might be her insecurities rearing the ugly side but let's not mince words in the grand scheme of things here.

Tossing the book he had been reading aside on the coffee table, he considers the question before answering, gaze flickering to her briefly. "No."

"Why not?" The notion seems absurd, given the nature of their 'relationship' at Hogwarts.

He seems mildly annoyed at the onslaught of queries she was bombarding him with. "I was too much of a coward to do something as brave as fall in love," he says offhandedly as if making small talk about weather. "Surely enough you have heard stories about my cowardice."

He absentmindedly rubs his forearm, the dark mark has long since faded away but it still seems to shimmer and burn in his memory.

"For what it's worth, I don't think you are a coward."

"No?" His eyebrow furrows in mock surprise. "Well then you might not know me all that well."

"Self preservation is hardly cowardice," she states, refusing to rise to the bait he was so clearly waving in her face. "You made mistakes, wrong choices. It is alright to be scared of repercussions; I know I would have been if I were in your shoes."

"Astoria," he grasps her hand from across the table and in a voice too soft to belong to him says. "Please stop psychoanalysing me."

They lapse in a comfortable silence after that but it is short lived.

"Were you?" He hasn't let go of her hand yet, not that she pays attention to the minute detail. Not at all.

"No," she whispers, articulation levels hitting a new low due to the oxygen his body keeps on stealing. "But I would like to be."

She tries not to feel too disappointed when she doesn't receive a response in return, choosing to say content with the fact that the grip on her hand tightens.

* * *

"You look lovely." He says when he comes across her in the garden estate, soaked to the bone with slicked pieces of damp hair plastered to her face. "But you will also fall sick enough to license a premature burial if you continue to stay out here in the rain."

Thunder cracks in the sky, enveloping the earth in an unsteady glow that somehow mirrors her inner turmoil and confusion towards the recently received news of her elder sister's elopement with a muggle born. She looks up to find him looming over her, an almost resigned element to his expression.

"Daphne has been disowned," she explains in lieu of a greeting, trembling hands and badly repressed sobs offering an insight of sorts towards her plight.

"So, I have heard." He tells her gently.

"But she is still my sister."

"I know."

"I don't… I don't hate her." She is surprised to realize she is crying, despite the fact that there is hardly even a worthy enough reason to justify the moisture dusting her lashes.

"I don't blame you for that." He holds out his hand to her.

She takes it. "Do you think she is happy?"

He jerks her close to him, cupping her chin to run a finger up down her cheek in a way that causes shivers to trickle along the length of her spine, his mouth a beat away from hers. "Yes."

"I think I'll stay here for a while." She decides in an attempt to escape the gravity of his gloomy, grey eyes that make it hard for her to breathe.

His mouth curls upward slightly as he continues to watch her with an emotion that she can't quite place. "But what if this storm never ends?"

Well, then.

* * *

She is a quivering mass of nerves when he touches her again, cutting her with his eyes and bruising her with his mouth. Her hands tug through his hair as he continues to place open mouthed kisses along the length of her clavicle that chase away the air out of her lungs. She steps back from him, hands reaching out for her zipper.

The wet dress slithers to the floor with the help of a few well timed tugs.

"Draco…" she bites down on her lip, mouth suddenly dry and fingertips aching. She doesn't feel the need to fill the velvety silence with trivial words.

He falls down on his knees before her, dark eyes and scorching touches. Her heart hammers as he tilts his head to catch her gaze. "If we do this, I am not letting go of you. Ever."

She can almost feel the steely resolve behind his words and hear the sound of her blood thrumming through veins. It feels like the start of something new.

She smiles. "Then what are you waiting for?"

The storm never ends that night; Astoria honestly can't find it in herself to be bothered.

-O-

**A/n: **So, I was reading this Draco/Astoria fic called _'On the other side'_ by _Off Dreaming_ – It's bloody fantastic - and felt the need to contribute something for the pairing myself. It would be nice if you manage to drop in a review seeing how I put in some effort for writing this even though I might have failed miserably. :/


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